Mr Nicholas West Weekly Update 1/4/2016

01 April 2016

F3 have been enjoying their study of traditional tales or stories over the last few weeks.

During our last assembly, four of the F3 children amazed the audience with a wonderful retelling of the story ‘The 3 Little Pigs’. Whilst the pigs were a little shy at first their acting skills were great and they made my job as narrator fun and easy.

These classes have also been entertained by many of the staff and children spending time with F3 sharing their favourite traditional tales with the children. Last week Mr. Lincoln, Secondary Humanities teacher, read Cinderella and next week more of the Secondary students will be reading to F3. Mr. McMullen, Director of Marketing and Admissions, read Hansel and Gretel and little Red Riding Hood, whilst Mrs. West read The Gingerbread Man. Y4B and Y4V read to F3B and F3V respectively and the Year 2 children have also spent time reading with F3. Miss Abi read an Anthony Browne version of Hansel and Gretel. These are all wonderful stories children in England grew up with, the sorts of books that inspire children to enjoy reading. Coupled with the enthusiasm for reading shown by all the members of our community, this has been an especially positive opportunity that the children of F3 will remember for a long time and hopefully one that has enhanced their love of reading. Thank you to all who took part.

Collaborative or shared learning is extremely important and this was just one example of it. Children sharing and teaching others what they have learnt cements their understanding and shows their skills. Year 5 did this twice this week, showing off all their scientific knowledge to their parents during their IPC exit point and also when they were teaching Year 2 how to write poems about animals under the sea. They really helped the younger children understand how to plan their writing and how to structure it; I look forward to reading the final poems.

Year 1 enjoyed a day trip to the Eco Park to look at all the plants and flowers there on Wednesday, learning linked to their IPC topic. Thankfully, the weather was good for this postponed trip and the children had a brilliant learning experience together. Next week, Years 4, 5 and 6 will all go on their residential trips; their excitement is huge!